“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea.” — Isak Dineson
It is just grainy light outside and Trey King is trundling his cart across an empty stretch of beach toward the water. In the cart are several five-gallon buckets that he will carry into the Gulf to harvest sea water, for the purpose of making salt. It is cold on this January morning and the beach is quiet. A few birds that look like sandpipers are milling about in the foreshore and a snowbird or two lurks in the distance. Reports of a great white shark moving through the area surfaced days ago but, for now, the twelve-foot tourist is nowhere to be seen.
On this raw winter morning King is decked out in waders and ball cap and he looks like a man ready to work. For the past year he has come to this spot in Gulf Shores twice a month to collect the raw materials for his trade. In the next hour will make a few trips from the water to his trailer, which is hitched to his truck in a lot at the intersection of 59 and 182, next to The Hangout. When he started this gig in late 2024, King would haul the buckets back by hand — but he quickly learned he was making a rookie mistake. King is in his early 30s with a rangy, athletic build but even the fittest of sorts needs wheels for this gig — those buckets get heavy.
By the time he enters the Gulf it is lighter out and the joinery between sea and sky does not show. The muted greens and blues are bordered by the whites of clouds and beach, and the calming hues resemble a painted scene from a dentist office. The party-vibes this stretch of beach is known for are nil at this hour.
Before heading into the water, King is careful to make sure it’s light enough to see. He has a family and will not abide any safety risks. On this morning the Gulf looks tranquil, but as someone who grew up on the Eastern Shore, he knows about the subtleties of rip tides and the need to respect the authority of the sea.
“Sometimes I go out there and it’s pretty sketchy,” he says. “But I got kids. I gotta be careful.”
This is an ideal time to harvest, he says, because there are no swimmers at this hour. That is important because even the faintest trace of oil-based sunscreen can taint a sample and render the water unusable. King also doesn’t harvest after rainstorms, which can yield runoff and create a host of problems.
“There have been times I’ve gone into the Gulf and the water looks like bottled water,” he says. “There have been other times when it is not that clean. That is where environmental stewardship comes in. I put a lot of credence and faith into the Gulf, but there is also the saying ‘trust but verify.’ I need to make sure I’m providing a consistent product. And part of that consistency comes with making sure my source is as reliable as possible.”
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Caine O'Rear 